Human beings have always been interested in language.
How did humans develop this skill? Is there any theory that explains how we started to communicate?
How do children develop it out of nothing? By repeating? Imitation?
Is Linguistics related to grammar? Do we need to know grammar to be a linguist?
What does a linguist do?
After our class discussion, what is Linguistics?
11 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 19, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Raiza Uzcátegui
Every human being is born with an innate capacity for acquiring a human language and communicating; however, when we are babies this natural ability is developed by the need of being understood and by the environment surrounding us. Additionally, in the school age is when we broaden our knowledge of the language system, vocabulary, etc., and we learn its actual use in social situations. There are some theories that explain this process; one of them is the behaviorist position, which states that children don’t have any knowledge about language when they are born; nevertheless, they are formed and conditioned by the surroundings. In contrast, there is a constructivist position in which children are born with an innate capacity (previous knowledge) to acquire language and this capacity is shaped later by the environment. The innate knowledge is develop by some important strategies such as repetition or association of frequent forms and items and imitation in which children reproduce or emulate what they hear around them.
__________________________________________________________
Although a linguist doesn’t have to be an expert, s/he should have some notions about grammar to understand and analyze properly a human language. A linguist is a person who studies and investigates about it. The job of the linguist is observing, analyzing and describing language with its variations and phenomena. We could say, after our class discussion, that linguistics is the scientific study of the observable and abstract aspects of language to know what it is and how it works.
February 20, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Mariángeles Salazar
I believe human beings develop the language skills because of the need of expressing their feelings, thoughts; and also to interact with their environment at different social contexts. Due to this necessity of expressing ourselves, scholars created four theories that explain how human beings started the communication process, among them we have: Pavlov’s Classical Behaviorism, Skinner’s Operant Conditioning, Ausubel’s Meaningfull learning and Roger’s Humanistic Psychology. They make emphasis on the human learning process through different approaches which explain the first language acquisition. It is also important to mention the way children acquire the language in which their native language is internalized by repetition and by imitation as long as they are exposed at any human language whiting a certain time (0 month to 6 years old). In this case, the mother have a crucial role in the child learning process, because she is the person who is in permanent contact with him or her.
I think that linguistics is directly related to grammar because linguistics is the study of language and grammar is the study of how language functions, that’s why they are closely related. And it is important to know grammar, because it to analyze language. And finally, A linguist analyzes and describes the actual language and its natural production.
Mariángeles Salazar
February 21, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Rincon Gabriela
Linguistic as we know is the study of any language using another as a base. Now, first of all, human being have the innate capacity to learn any language so if a chinesse speaking couple that lives here in venezuela teach their baby chinesse, although his environment is completly in spanish he would learn chinesse as a first language and them spanish as a second language. This is due to the fact that he will be in contact with his parents everytime and them he will notice tha difference and will try to speak chinesse with them and spanish with other people. anyways, Whatever the case is, we are able to learn a new language and with this in mind linguists have been working hard in its study. It is not only about grammar, but it includes many aspects like morphology and phonology, syntax or semantics, that not anoly describes the structures of the language but the uses and main rules.
February 22, 2007 at 11:27 am02
Luis Tequia
I think human beings develop language because of the necessities that we have to communicate with others and to obtain something(like babies). There are some theories that explain how we start to express ourselves and these are behaviorism, that stablish that there should be a stimuli to have response and we can see that in little kids when they try to imitate and repeat something, and constructivism that says that we construct our kwnoledge from the experiences we get in our surrounding. As I mentioned before, children learn language in many ways but the most common ones are repetiton and imitation because these two seem to be the easiest for them to acquire language.
In my opinion, Linguistcs is not too related to grammar because linguistics deals with the different components that language has and study the formation of it, and grammar have to do more with structures, so we don`t need to know it to be a linguist because a linguist studies language and not the grammar.
Lisguistics is the science that study the language and its components, and try to explain what is language and how it works in certain context.
February 22, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Carla Monarde
Since always human beign has been related with language, being this his principal mean of communication. Through language we can get or give a response of something that is requested, the theory that explain this actions is known as behaviorism. Children as they are in the first years of their lives, don’t have a moral knowledge of what is right or wrong, they just learn by imitation which comes from outside (enviroment) watching what other people do. Definetly linguistics deals with grammar, being this an important element of language, a htink a linguistic should know about grammar but also about pragmatics, phonology, semantic etc that make successful the process of understanding of a language. Beacuse linguistics’ work is to describe the language, but not only by how it is produced but in which context, and taking in account speaker’s intention, and the charactristics itself.
Linguistics is how language is described in a eclectic way, taking relevant elements, and involving them to describe it as a whole unit.
February 22, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Luisana Rosales
I think all human beings are born with an innate capacity to acquire language because of our necessity to express whatever we want to say or whatever is on our minds. I also think that we, as human beaings, have always been interested in language because we are always trying to find out ways of expressing ourselves not only among our mutual social context (that is, people we actually know) but also among other social context (people from other cultures) because it is a nature thing.
While we are growing up, we are go through several stages where we acquire our and possible future knowldge. This can be explain by theories which had been made to determine how we star to communicate. Some of the theories that support the fact that we are able to develop this skill are behaviorism and constructivism. The first one is refered to the acquirement of our knowldge in terms of our behavior and how it is influenced by the enviroment we are in touched, and the second one, constructivism, tell us about a previous, constructed knowledge and how we will apply it in a near future.
When babies are born they have their own way to communicate to adult people. If, for example, a baby starts crying and suddenly h/she notices that adult people go to them, they will know that crying they can catch somebody elses attention. While they are growing up, they are absorbing everything they see and at the same time, repeat what they have just learned.
I think linguistics is related to grammar because in order to understand it we have to see beyond language and how it is structured. Language is not only what you are able to express. it is also how you express it. Linguistics has nothing to do with psychology but one or another when get to stablish similarities between these two. And it is the same thing with filosophy and many other fields which has anything to do linguistics, but at the end they have everything to do with it.
A linguistic deals with language, of course, how it is formed and how it works in actual and real context.
Linguistics is the science which studies language and its components in many fields (morphology, psychology, syntax, phonology, etc.) and also tries to explain how language works in actual and real context.
After our class discussion, what is Linguistics?
February 26, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Luis Gutiérrez
In my opinion human beings develop language through the interaction with the social context in which they need to communicate each other their feelings, needs, desires etc.
I also consider that human beings started to communicate in order to subsist, in other words, we created this skill in terms of making life easier, we felt the nessecity of share our social problems. it exists two theories that expalin how we started two communicate which are the behavioristic postion that states that children come to the world without any knowledge and little by little they adopt language through the interaction with people; and the other constructivist which claim that children come into this world with an innate knowledge.
I think both process (repeating and imitation) are possible.Although children as human beings need to express what they feel, they need to apply or begin to learn their languange by repeating and imitation, maybe because they realise that this is the way that the call people’s attention.
linguistic and grammar are realted in terms that grammar involves a set of rules that linguistic tend to describe and organize for its better comprehension.
Linguistics don’t have to be specialist in grammar but I think they need to have a certain knowledge in orden to understand and describe the language even better.
I consider that a linguistic is a person who have attempted to define what language is, but also he/she is concern about the description of language.
to sum up, Linguistic is the science that attempt to find and describe the origin and the porpouse of language.
Luis Gutiérrez
February 26, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
Myrsi Sosa
I think human beings started to communicate because is a need, when we are born and we do not how to talk we learn to cry to get what we need (new pampers, bottle of milk or just love). With time, we start to reapeat and imitate what our relatives say, but always with an intention to get what we want. In my opinion, children develop language by repeating and imitating what adults say.
We don not need to know about grammar to be linguistics, because what linguistics do is study what is used in laguage and the job of a linguistic is not to judge how people talk.
Linguistics is the science which studies languages, the way the language is formed or arranged and its communicational purpose without making judgements about it.
February 27, 2007 at 11:27 am02
Yalexda Navarro
I think that huma being see the communication as a need,because our world is a social. Since child we try to communicate ourselves, we have to share our fellings, emotions, etc. If we can not communicate in any way we can fell lost, human beings born with a innate capacity to communicate even when have problems with ears or voice.
With time we human being improve the language with studies one with basic study abot the language that they talk and others deeper like us that we study all the aspect about language.
Linguistic is the science which study all the aspect include in language, the purpose, origin and social context of a language
February 27, 2007 at 11:27 am02
José Freddy Herrera López
In my opinion in fact a linguists does not need to know the grammar of a particular language to study and understand it but of course he/she needs to have knowledge about grammar at list of his/her first language because the job of a linguist is to describe the language as it is and in the context it happen.
All human have born with an innate capacity for acquiring a human language and communicating; and the way how they acquire the language is not that clear, I mean we are not sure if it for repetition or imitation may be both are theories, but the only thing that is clear is that the necessity of have things done or obtaining something, has enforced human to develop different ways of communication.
February 27, 2007 at 11:27 pm02
sailet leon
I tnink human beings stared to communicate since the very beggining of all times, when we lived in caves and eat with our hands, thanks to the necesity of comunicate with other to get something, but i do not know of any theory that explain this fact
In my opinion, children start to communicate, the same way men did in ancient times, with the necesity of communication, they start, to repit and imitate what they see in the enviroment that surrounds them
Of course linguistics is related to grammar, but not in all senses, it is already known that linguistcs i9nvolves every aspect of language en grammar is one of them, and its no need to know about it to be a linguist.
a linguistic tries to describe languge